This Conservative government has now been in power longer than its Labour predecessor. The days of a pre-Strictly Come Dancing Ed Balls running schools feel like a bygone era.

So, too, does the demise of his Department for Children, Schools and Families, unceremoniously ditched by Michael Gove amid controversies around rebranding costs and imported designer chairs.

Renaming it as the Department for Education felt like a clear message from the new government: this department is here to improve schools and raise standards, the rest is a distraction.

Thirteen years on, this internal culture change has outlived countless education secretaries and children’s ministers.

Names and faces come and go while the DfE’s interest in the lives and wellbeing of children beyond the classroom remains static and often unambitious.

Expanding our ambitions

As I experienced during six years as children’s commissioner, the department has been encouraged to exist in a world where school standards and structures are its main priorities.

I’ve never doubted the government’s passionate commitment to improving the educational outcomes of our children, and most children are doing well at school. But “most” should not be the limit of our expectations.

We need to ask why a sizeable number of young people are not doing well, either in school or outside of it.

We have an education system where one in five teenagers is leaving without basic qualifications, and more without the skills that employers are looking for. The attainment gap shows little sign of narrowing post-Covid.

We are dumping too many vulnerable young people in alternative provision that is often low quality, sometimes dangerous and well below the standards we would expect for our own children.

The number of students not attending school at all has become a serious problem, and we have an overstretched special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system. One in six young people has a recognised mental health condition, yet less than half of schools have mental health teams to support them.

Our care system is broken and we have millions of children growing up in poverty, with all the barriers that can bring.

Teacher burdens continue to grow

Meanwhile, the expectations and demands on teachers expand, with some feeling like de facto social workers. Unsurprisingly, there is a recruitment and retention crisis.

This trajectory does not suggest we are heading towards the status of a world-class education system any time soon. The government’s focus on raising overall school standards, particularly with regards to literacy, does deserve plaudits, but it has only taken us so far.

As so many teachers tell me, tackling the big challenges facing children - many of which are preventing success in education and later life - requires a joined-up approach that goes beyond simply a Department for Education.

Far from being a distraction, supporting children from cradle to career and providing help to build stronger families should be at the core of our education mission.  

Restoring “Children” and “Families” to the Department for Education nameplate would recognise that judging the success of a school solely on how its students perform in the final year of their education cannot meet the needs of every child or our economy.

Support for all children to be successful, to do well, to be happy, to get great jobs or to go to university is happening.

Many schools are doing it right now - sticking with children, working with their families, building strong relationships and being a central part of their local community. But it feels that, too often, such support happens despite central government, not because of it. It is not a systemic ambition.

Giving the department clear priorities

The Department for Curtains and Soft Furnishings jibes made for a good political knockabout but the cultural shift that accompanied them has meant that the government has often been muddled and uncoordinated in its policies for young people.

Several departments do “something”, but no single department takes overall responsibility for the success, safety and wellbeing of all our children.

It is time to establish clear leadership and accountability for all government work relating to children and young people by bringing all such activities under the umbrella of one department, reflecting the central importance of children’s welfare and family support to educational success.

We won’t create a world-class education system until we do.

Anne Longfield OBE is chair of the Commission on Young Lives and a former children’s commissioner for England